Nicolas is presently the Deputy Director of the American University Brussels Centre where he teaches international law subjects. Parallel to these functions, he is a member of the international trade law and cross-border dispute resolution practice groups at PLL Legal. He regularly advises national governments and small and medium-sized enterprises on World Trade Organization (WTO) law, regional trade agreements, the relationship between trade and climate change, trade remedies law, e-procurement and digital trade. He was particularly involved in bilateral consultations between the US and UK governments in the context of a Section 301 investigation opened by the USTR in response to the UK Parliament's adoption of the Digital Services Tax. He also participated in the negotiation of the free trade agreement between the UK government and the EFTA states.
Before joining PLL Legal, he built his career advising the Disputes Team of the UK Government’s Department for International Trade dealing with litigations arising under the WTO Agreement and free trade agreements. Before that, he worked in the private sector for numerous leading global law firms. Notably, he was a Senior Associate at Herbert Smith Freehills LLP in Brussels and London, where he successfully defended a tobacco company against product safety enforcement actions brought by the Austrian and Czech authorities. He has also advised a multinational corporation on how to challenge a State's measure before a WTO panel, and a sovereign entity on how to re-design its legislation in line with WTO law.
He has also worked for McKenna Long & Aldridge (after the merger, DENTONS), where he was involved in over a dozen ad hoc international commercial arbitration cases adjudicated in Athens, Paris and London.
Nicolas was also co-counsel in two cases before the European Chemicals Agency Board of Appeal, as well as in private law cases before the Belgian and Dutch courts. He was also involved in two cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union.
• DPhil, University of Oxford.
Honors: Wiener-Anspach Scholarship and Arts & Humanities Research Council Studentship.
• LL.M. and Certificate in International and Comparative Law, Columbia University.
• Universite Libre de Bruxelles. Licence en Droit International, Magna Cum Laude. Licence en Droit (private law specialization), Magna Cum Laude.
• BA and MA in Law (graduated with a 2:1 honours degree), University of Cambridge.
• Formerly Teaching Assistant in International Environmental Law at Columbia Law School
• Formerly Tutor in EU Law at Oriel College, University of Oxford
• Formerly Visiting Lecturer in International Human Rights Law at the New College of the Humanities (now Northeastern University School of Law)
• Formerly Associate Lecturer in Private Law at Brussels Free University
• Bar of England & Wales (dormant)
• New York State Bar
• Qualified as an Avocat at the Brussels French-speaking Bar (dormant)
